Month: March 2009

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Adobe Captivate 4: Multiply Your Click Options

 
I can no longer count how many times I've been asked the following about interactive objects in Adobe Captivate: "Can I force an object to perform more than just one action?"
 
The people asking this question are asking a perfectly respectable question, one that I would have liked to answer with "of course, you simply…"
 
Unfortunately, the answer has always been no. You can select from several actions for any interactive object (a click box, button or text entry box) such as Continue, Go to Next slide or open a URL. However, the objects have always been one-trick ponies… once assigned an action, that was it. Of course, all of that has changed in Adobe Captivate 4. In the new version, you can assign multiple actions to any interactive object. Here's how:
  1. Open or create a new project
  2. Create an interactive object on any slide
  3. Show the Properties of the object and, from the If the user clicks drop-down menu, select Multiple Actions

  4. Click the button with the three dots just to the right of the drop-down menu to display the Set Multiple Actions dialog box
  5. Select an action such as Jump to slide
  6. Click the Add button
  7. Select another action or actions (such as Open URL or file)
  8. Click the Add button

    Multiple actions

  9. Click OK
 
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Need to learn Adobe Captivate 4 fast? Attend a live, 2-day online training class. Click here for more information.
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Adobe FrameMaker: Hey, Where Did My Menus Go?

 
FrameMaker has had a view-only option for as long as I can remember. Long before most of us began using Acrobat for view-only file distribution, a product called FrameViewer was available to address that need for FrameMaker users. The idea was that you could create a complicated FrameMaker publication, and then distribute it electronically for viewing out in the field with the much-less-expensive FrameViewer.
 
To preview how a file would act in the FrameViewer environment, you could lock your FrameMaker document and render it read-only. Once locked, you could easily follow any document hyperlinks and test your online/PDF navigation systems.
 
These days, most people rely on Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader for electronic file distribution (FrameViewer disappeared years ago). So what does this have to do with your FrameMaker workflow? Back in the day, you used a complicated keyboard shortcut to lock and unlock a FrameMaker file: [Esc] [F] [l] [k]. Since there wasn't a menu command, it wasn't very easy to accidently lock a document.
 
With the introduction of FrameMaker 7.2 and beyond, Adobe provided a handy button that will lock a document. In 7.2 and 8, the button sits on the Formatting Bar and the tooltip label reads "Toggle View only." In FrameMaker 9, the button changed to a little padlock icon and now appears on the Quick Access Bar (right next to the Print button).
 
The new, more prominent position of the lock button makes me nervous. Imagine this: you are in a hurry and want to print your document. You miss the Print button and click the Lock button, but don't realize it. Suddenly, you have a reduced set of menus, and you can't edit the file. In a panic, you might click the Undo button–which doesn't unlock the document. Worse, even closing and reopening the document doesn't unlock it. Of course, all you have to do is click the lock button one more time to remove the view-only property, but when I'm panicking, I rarely think clearly enough to make a rational decision like that.
 
The moral of this little story: unless you are checking your hyperlinks, stay away from the lock button. If you suddenly can't edit your file, and you notice that about half of the normal menus are missing, it means you must have clicked it and put your document into view-only mode. Seek out the lock button, click it again to unlock your file, and maybe make a mental note to stay clear of it in the future.
 
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Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Click here.
 
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About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers in the world.
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Adobe Acrobat 9.1: The Properties Bar… A Hidden Gem

 
Many folks are perfectly content with leaving things the way they are.
 
"Why change it? It works, doesn't it?"
 
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
 
Well, if everyone subscribed to this way of thinking, and they used Acrobat in a review cycle with co-workers, it wouldn't take long for the pages of a PDF file to become covered with dozens of yellow Sticky Notes (because yellow is the default color of a Sticky Note). It would be infinitely easier to decipher a colleague's comments if each contributor had his/her own unique color for their comments.
 
In Adobe products, I have long subscribed to the notion that if you're looking for a command, right-click and it's likely there. Many folks, therefore, have discovered on their own that if you right-click a Sticky Note's icon, you can select Properties and change the way your note icon looks by making changes on the Appearance Tab. If you have created a Call Out, you could right-click on its edge and adjust the line style, line weight and fill color.
 
Acrobat Object Properties
 
The secret to unlocking these attributes more quickly (and finding attributes that you can't even get to by right-clicking) is to open up a toolbar called the Properties Bar. The Properties Bar concept is not new. Early releases of QuarkXPress had a Properties bar, and it didn't take Aldus, and ultimately Adobe long to realize its value and include it in PageMaker.
 
To launch the Properties Bar, right-click the tool bar area at the top of your Acrobat interface and choose Properties Bar.
 
Properties Bar
 
Now that the Properties Bar is visible, it's time to scratch your head. It appears to do NOTHING. Actually, the Properties Bar is doing just what it's designed to do–show you the properties of whatever object you have currently selected. You likely had nothing selected, so the Properties Bar was just minding its own business and waiting for you to click on something.
 
Select a Sticky Note and the Properties Bar instantly reports the Note's properties. You can change the attributes of the Sticky Note by simply dialing in a different value in the Properties Bar.
 
Any commenting object you select can easily be customized. Clicking on a Call Out allows you to quickly customize its stroke, fill and opacity. Double-clicking inside the text area puts you in text edit mode, and you can then select a custom typeface and text alignment.
 
Customizing commenting objects
 
If you like the Properties Bar as much as I do, you may want to have it onscreen all the times. Consider dragging the Properties Bar to the edge of your Acrobat window and dock (attach) it anywhere you like.
 
Properties Bar docked
 
***
 
Want to learn more about Adobe Acrobat? Click here.
 
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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.
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Questions of the Week

Adobe Captivate 4 Question: Is There a Better Way to Resize?
 
I hope you might be able to help me. I have made a rather basic mistake in creating my Captivate project with a screen setting different from the Web standard settings used by my organization. The result is that the lessons are very large and cut off some of the screen. I have used the resizing function available in Captivate (Project menu) but I have found that I still have to go in and manually change the text and caption sizes to make them fit. Do you have any suggestions as to how I might do this in an automated manner?

 

Answer

 
Sorry to say, but the display resolution and recording area are so critical, there is nothing you can do post-production to elegantly fix the problem should you make a mistake with either of those two settings. (That's why I spend so much time discussing both in my online Captivate class before we actually capture a single screen.)
 
While there is option to resize your slide objects when you resize the project, you've already seen that this feature is not perfect. The best you can do would be to recapture the screens at the correct resolutions and then import the objects and captions from the original projects. Using this technique, you will only need the screens, not the interactivity (which should save you the bulk of the production work).
 
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Adobe Captivate Question: Why Aren't My Jumps Working?
 
I recently purchased Captivate 4 and have been learning to use it mostly by trial and error. While trying to create some very basic tutorials, I have had problems with the "go to slide…" option. At the end of my training, I want the user to have the option to click on a button and go back to slide 1 to try it all again. When testing the project via preview mode, the button just ends the tutorial after I click the button. Any thoughts would be helpful.
 
Answer:
 
The most likely problem isn't a problem at all. I'm betting that you are testing the link from the last slide to the first via Preview > Next 5 Slides. Using this preview mode, you aren't actually previewing the first slide so the jump to the slide won't work. If you want to test your jumps, preview the entire project.
 
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Adobe Captivate Question: Can I Teach Captivate Classes?
 
What qualifications do you think you need to train in Captivate?
 
Answer:
 
You'd need certification from CompTIA; and meet the Adobe trainer requirements. And you'd need to pass the Adobe exam for Captivate.
 
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Adobe Captivate Question: Does Captivate Create a Recovery File?
 
I just lost all the (Captivate) work I have done since 10:20 AM today. Captivate doesn't do automatic saves, does it? Or would I find my updates in a temporary file? I am guessing not… I forgot to hit Save since 10:20 and a cord pulled out of my machine and poof! My file closed. Any miracle cures?
 
Answer:
 
Sorry to hear about that. No, there isn't an automatic backup feature in Captivate; nor is there an auto save feature. If it's been that long since your last save, I'm afraid everything between the last save and the power loss is gone. Let your pain do some good for other Captivate developers out there… save and backup your work all of the time!
 
Adobe RoboHelp Question: What's Up with the Browse Sequence?
 
My RoboHelp browse sequence is not displaying correctly I am using a skin that I downloaded from the Adobe website. Is there some setting I must override to get the browse sequence to display correctly?
 
Answer:
 
Not every skin has browse sequences enabled. Check the properties of the skin and you'll find a browse sequence check box on the second screen. In addition, the browse sequence may, in fact be there. However, if the sequence does not match your TOC 100%, it will appear as two useless gray arrows and only kick in if you hit a topic in the sequence.
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Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.
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Grammar Workshop: How to Interrupt a Sentence with Commas

Four kinds of interruptions to a sentence need commas: contrary negative interruptions, independent comments, transition words and nonessential descriptions. Let's look at contrary negatives and independent comments first.
 
Contrary negatives usually begin with but not or just plain not.
 
Here are examples:
 
  • The backspace key, not the delete key, deletes the previous character.
  • Bicycles, roller blades, and roller skates, but not skateboards, are allowed in this section of the park.
Independent comments tell the reader extraneous information about the sentence:
  • Tea drinkers, we all agreed, use more sugar than coffee drinkers.
  • "I disagree," he said, "I think coffee drinkers use more sugar."
  • The dialog box on the left, as you can see in the screen shot below, has more options.
 
Transition words (however, therefore, moreover, nonetheless, hence, nevertheless, thus) need commas before and after when they are interrupting in the middle of one sentence. But be careful, because sometimes they appear between two sentences and require a semicolon before and a comma after.
 
Here is a transition word interrupting a single sentence:
  • He drinks black coffee every morning. I, however, prefer tea.
 
Here is a transition word between two sentences:
  • He drinks black coffee every morning; however, I prefer tea.
You could, of course, put a period at the end of the first sentence and have the transition word at the beginning of your second sentence (of course, is, of course, an independent comment):
  • He drinks black coffee every morning. However, I prefer tea.
The final kind of interruption with commas is the nonessential description. It is nonessential because if you left it out, the reader would not be left wondering who or what you are talking about.
 
Here are examples of nonessential descriptions:
  • The Potomac River, which is tidal at the point where it passes the Wilson Bridge, is much cleaner now than it was in the 1970s.
If you removed the part about being tidal, the reader would still know which river you were talking about. Here is another nonessential description:
  • The Microsoft Word chart applet, which is included at no extra cost with the Word program, is robust enough to handle basic charts.
What all of these interruptions have in common is that they could be removed from the sentence with no major loss of meaning. These interruptions add detail, explanations, and extraneous information, or they clarify the relationships between parts of a sentence. Next time we will look at interruptions with no punctuation at all.
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About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.
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Adobe RoboHelp: Making Topics Conditional

 
I received an email recently where a RoboHelp author had removed a topic from the TOC, but was distressed to learn that users could still use the Search tab to find the topic. In addition, the topic appeared on the index tab.
 
As this developer discovered, simply omitting a topic from the TOC does not prevent it from appearing in the generated output. When the project is generated, users who happen to Search for a word or phrase that actually appears in the topic will stumble upon the topic. Not only that, if you run the Smart Index Wizard, the topic will likely be added to the index (you'd have to manually remove the keyword from the index prior to generating).
 
Short of deleting a topic from the project, what's a developer to do? Read on…
 
  1. On the Conditional Build Tags pod, create a new condition
  2. Right-click a topic and choose Properties
  3. On the Advanced tab, select the condition you created from the Top-level Tags area (or use one of the two default conditions, Print or Online)

    Advanced: Conditional Build Tags

  4. Show the Properties of a layout (on the Single Source Layouts pod)
  5. Click the Define button to the right of Conditional Build Expression drop-down menu
  6. Double-click the tag you selected in step 3 above to move it to the Exclude from output area

    Define a Conditional Build Expression

  7. Click OK
Notice that the expression you created now appears in the Conditional Build Expression drop-down menu. If you generate this layout now, the topic you attached to the Top-level tag will not appear anywhere in the layout (not the TOC, not on the Index and not via Search).
 
Conditional Build Expression drop-down menu 
 
***
 
Need to learn Adobe RoboHelp 8 fast? Attend our 2-day online training class from the comfort of your home or office. All you'll need is Adobe RoboHelp 8 installed, a headset and a reliable Internet connection. Click here to learn more.
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New Online Class: Upgrading from Captivate 3 to Captivate 4

Adobe Captivate 4 was recently released by Adobe Systems and I feel that this is the greatest version of Captivate ever. It's so jammed full of new goodies, you may not be able to find them all without a little help.
 
Join me for a 3-hour, live training event and learn how to use the new Captivate features–and where the Captivate 3 features you've grown to know and love have gone.
 
To learn more about the class, click here.
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Grammar Workshop: Ways to Interrupt a Sentence, Part 2–EM Dashes

The em dash represents an abrupt, surprise, important interruption in a sentence. Think of an em dash as a tornado warning interrupting your sitcom on TV.
 
The interruption is of more urgency and import than the sentence itself. The surprise thought can come at the end of the sentence, following one dash, or it can come in the middle of the sentence, surrounded by two dashes.
 
Here are some examples of em dashes at the end of sentences:
  • The actor had a reaction to winning the Oscar–he cried.
  • A blurr buzzed by my window, whizzed across the porch, and zoomed around the corner to the flower bed–it was a hummingbird.
Em dashes used this way can be seen as the equivalent of a colon introducing something:
 
  • He wanted just one thing for his sixteenth birthday–a car.
Two em dashes set off an interruption in the middle of a sentence, like this:
  • My old flame from high school–you remember, the one with a beard like ZZ Top–found me on Facebook.
  • The Microsoft Word Developer tab–it only appears on the screen if you have specifically chosen the option to display it–has some convenient Macro tools.
Do not use dashes in two sentences in a row. The dashes actually draw more attention than the period at the end of a sentence, and they can distract the reader and cause misreading, like this:
  • He had just one goal–learn InDesign. He had only one problem–no computer. 
*** 

 

About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.
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Adobe Acrobat 9.1: Safety First! Update Now To Prevent Attacks

 
This week's Acrobat tip is one that should not be taken lightly. Hackers are out there. They want your computer, and are ridiculously inventive in finding ways to gain control of your data, CPU or bandwidth.Update Acrobat to version 9.1... keep the bad guys out!
 
Acrobat itself has become the target of a recently discovered hack, and the bad guys are already exploiting a weakness in Acrobat's underpinnings. That's right–Acrobat or even Reader can be convinced to crash and could "potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected systems."
 
Adobe also acknowledged that there are reports the vulnerability issue is already being exploited. YIKES!! Click here to read about this vulnerability.
 
How the heck can you protect yourself from this pending disaster? Adobe has just released a bulletin that contains links to download Acrobat & Reader 9.1. If you are running version 9, download and install this update as soon as possible. (Adobe is planning to make available updates for Adobe Reader 7 and 8, and Acrobat 7 and 8 by March 18th.)
 
The major AntiVirus vendors are also on the move to help protect you from these malicious attacks. To stay safely under their protective umbrella, you must update your virus definitions. Honestly, new threats pop up so frequently, you should have your AntiVirus application check for updates DAILY.
 
Want some incentive to do this now? Quicken. Paypal. Online Banking. Your address book. Photos of your kids. Install Reader or Acrobat Professional 9.1–and breathe a little easier.
 
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Want to learn more about Adobe Acrobat? Click here.
 
***
 
David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.